


Even in Silence

by NowtButFanfic



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 1940s, Brooklyn, Cryofreeze (Marvel), Cryogenics, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sharing a Bed, Sleeping Beauty Elements, Sleeping Together, Wakanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:25:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9624071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NowtButFanfic/pseuds/NowtButFanfic
Summary: Bucky hated the cold. Not the delight of the cool sea breeze or the welcome relief an electric fan brought on a blazing summer's day but the biting burn of snow and ice and winter's bleak chill which seeped into marrow of your bones..."Wouldn't you rather be snuggling up to some buxom broad than my bony ass?""Sure, but she'd want me to marry her before she starts paying half the rent. You've never once asked me to make an honest man of you. You're fine with snuggling in sin.""You callin' me a cheap date, Barnes?""Just as well you are, Rogers. It'd be real difficult to find a new roommate if you froze to death because I wasn't here to warm you up. There ain't much of you, but dead bodies sure do stink up a place.""My hero."Even when he had nothing, Steve had Bucky. Now that Steve has Bucky back, Steve knows he would burn the world to ash to keep Bucky safe. But then, the feeling has always been mutual.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thesleepingsatellite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesleepingsatellite/gifts).



 

Steve knows it's ridiculous. It's not like Bucky is merely sleeping. Bucky is _cryogenically frozen_ , for Pete's sake. 

 

But standing there, looking at that beloved face - a face that has filled his dreams and haunted his nightmares for as long as Steve can recall - it is almost as if Bucky is just catching a lazy forty winks on a warm Sunday afternoon in the middle of summer. It's almost as if Steve will be able to lean over and blow into his ear to wake him up, scolding him for wasting such a beautiful day, while Bucky grumbles and laughs and pulls the sheet over his head as he bitches about sticky humidity and smog and cranky pedestrians.

 

  
_Almost_.

 

Bucky's face is relaxed, the lines and shadows of years - _decades_ \- of worry and strain and trauma softened.

 

But Steve's heart pounds still, with a strange cocktail of emotions like fear and regret and love he cannot - and is, if Steve is honest with himself, _afraid to_ \- define. The man in front of Steve does not look like the Bucky from before...everything. That Bucky didn't have four days of beard growth and shoulder-grazing hair and a pale palour that had nothing to do with the ice surrounding him.

 

That Bucky hated the cold. Not the delight of the cool sea breeze or the welcome relief an electric fan brought on a blazing summer's day but the biting burn of snow and ice and winter's bleak chill which seeped into marrow of your bones...

 

_"Wouldn't you rather be snuggling up to some buxom broad than my bony ass?"_

_"Sure, but she'd want me to marry her before she starts paying half the rent. You've never once asked me to make an honest man of you. You're fine with snuggling in sin."_

_"You callin' me a cheap date, Barnes?"_

_"Just as well you are, Rogers. It'd be real difficult to find a new roommate if you froze to death because I wasn't here to warm you up. There ain't much of you, but dead bodies sure do stink up a place."_

_"My hero."_

Steve can see it. Two young men, lying together in a narrow bed, blankets piled high, bare limbs and socked feet twined to combat the incessant draft the old Brooklyn apartment building had no hope of holding at bay. Bucky's strong arms wrapped around Steve's skinny chest which heaves and aches from the coughing and pain and sickness the winter inevitably brings. Bucky's warm breath tickling Steve's neck, his voice in Steve's ear, soothing him, telling him he doesn't give a goddamn if the neighbours would talk if they saw them like this, that no dame would let Bucky near her.

 

_"You're more important to me that any gal could ever be, Stevie."_

 

The banter and laughter and warmth and _love_ comes back to Steve with such force it seizes the air from his lungs, leaving him gasping and wheezing in a way that always brought Bucky to his side, rubbing his back as he murmured soothing words and helped him breathe.

 

_"Sleep now, Stevie. Rest that body of yours."_

_"You need to rest, too. Don't deny it, Barnes. I know that you sleep, too. Just like regular people."_

_"I also get cold, just like regular people. You know I hate being cold. You're better than a hot water bottle. You think I'd be cuddled up to you if you felt like an ice cube?"_

Steve doesn't even realise he's reached out to brush his fingertips along the glass of the tube until his fingertips register the cold.

_"Stop fighting it, Steve. Sleep. I'll be here when you wake up."_

_"Is that a threat or a promise?"_

_"You couldn't lose me if you tried, Rogers. I'd find you, showing up like a bad penny."_

_"Well, it'd be pointless of you to leave. I'd find you real easy. All I'd have to do is follow the trail of that god-awful colonge of yours."_

_Bucky's laugh had rung out like music to Steve's ears. "I don't doubt you'll always find me, wherever I end up."_

"It took me too long," Steve murmurs to Bucky. "I almost lost you. I...I failed you."

 

Steve knows hot tears are stinging his eyes and that the technicians have long since excused themselves from the room and that all the love and loss and struggle is clear on his face. That Captain America is hunched and crying and sobbing on the floor of a Wakandan medical bay over a man who Hydra broke and brutalised and brainwashed into doing their bidding and killing and maiming for decades. 

 

But he doesn't care. He wishes that he could just lean forward and kiss that plump mouth and that Bucky would awaken, refreshed and healed and whole, just like Sleeping Beauty.

 

_"Life ain't a fairy tale, Stevie. We just have to do the very best that we can with what we've got. But we have each other. That's more than enough for me."_

"Rest, Bucky," Steve murmurs. "I'll be here when you wake up."


End file.
